Services
– QC "Illumina" NGS libraries
• Illumina Services
• Illumina Run times
• General NGS Recommendations
Illumina-based NGS libraries must be out-sourced for sequencing; nevertheless, we do provide some workflow services for the construct of Illumina NGS libraries.
Illumina Services
For size-selection, quantitation, and QC of NGS libraries, please visit the 'Services' webpage. Both 'full-service' and 'self-service' options are available.
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Illumina Run Times
Run times vary dramatically across Illumina platforms, ranging from days to weeks. Perhaps more importantly, many Illumina vendors have long wait lists; thus, ask about this issue when selecting a vendor.
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General NGS Recommendations
Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) experiments are expensive and more complex than traditional Sanger-sequencing. Further, analysis of NGS data is not trivial. Thus, to fully leverage any NGS platform,
you need a thorough understanding of the instrument's abilities with regard to your research question and a sound experimental design – including how to analyze the resulting multi-Gb of data – before preparing your templates.
Investigate the literature and discuss your research interests with knowledgeable people.
Consult with your chosen vendor regarding your proposed experimental protocol as well as the timing of your run
well ahead of when you intend to submit your samples.
Consult with your chosen vendor to determine if your samples will be multiplexed in the same lane with samples from other clients; if so, construct your libraries in a way that minimizes the chance that reads from other clients will be binned with your reads... and determine upfront how to detect and remove any contaminating reads from your resulting data.
Determine what software is required for data analysis. Then, download appropriate large data sets to
practice using the software and to verify that your computing resources are sufficient.
Determine what databases (if any) will be required; for example, whole genome sequencing requires
a reference genome for sequence alignment. Download the appropriate information from the required
databases in advance and ensure that it is in the appropriate format for analysis with your
chosen software.
Make your initial experiment as simple as possible, while still getting usable data.
Heed the 'Garbage in, Garbage out' mantra when making your libraries and quantifying your template.
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